This dissertation connects Kenneth Burke and Ralph Ellison in the context of a radical 1930s culture through their shared term action and explains the prominent appearance of action in Invisible Man as a vestige of Ellisons radical beginnings. Chapters clarify the emergence of Burkes and Ellisons writings in the 1930s, cluster appearances of action in relation to other key terms, assess political motives, and counter readings and appropriations of their work that ignore, reduce, or redirect such political elements. Attending particularly to Burkes first editions of Permanence and Change and Attitudes toward History, as well as to uncollected writings in the period, the dissertation draws out Burkes communistic attitude, commitments to organized politics as a literary and rhetorical critic, and wariness toward American philosophical pragmatism and John Dewey. It traces radical concerns and tropes from Ellisons early writings to drafts of his novel and places Ellisons positive reception of Burkes paper at the third American Writers Congress in 1939 alongside the influence of Richard Wright and Langston Hughes. The dissertation argues that Burke and Ellison conceived themselves as cultural participants in a project to transform social relations and shows how recent scholarship concerning these writers, especially work seeking to claim them from a neopragmatist perspective, domesticates markers of their 1930s political imaginary.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PITT/oai:PITTETD:etd-07052011-150900 |
| Date | 27 September 2011 |
| Creators | Henderson, Clark |
| Contributors | Paul A. Bove, Jonathan Arac, Nancy Condee, Ronald A. T. Judy |
| Publisher | University of Pittsburgh |
| Source Sets | University of Pittsburgh |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.pitt.edu/ETD/available/etd-07052011-150900/ |
| Rights | restricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Pittsburgh or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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